Help. The Second Part.

A man and a woman stand in the foreground of Descent from the Cross, waiting to help. The man's arms are stretched out, the painter has given him a cloth to hold. Very ordinary, no more than what is needed. What, at this point, can be done? The work of it; lifting the poor, broken son, cleaning, wiping, combing, wrapping, positioning in a semblance of living comfort, shift him gently. Hurrying, hurrying, as the sun strides away, turning from this day's misery, flinging itself over the horizon and dragging all the day's terrible work with it. These people, this family, are coming back after the Sabbath to unwrap, to touch and linger, to work without hurry, to settle him, sleeping, with all their love and all their care and all their time. They leave him in darkness but they are coming back, they will see him, once more, soon. And they are right. But before they see him, someone else will have freed him from their careful bindings.


Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
John 20:6-7

I always wonder about that napkin, folded and set aside. Careful, deliberate. Tidy. I am thinking about angels.

I struggle getting to church on time. Arriving early is what separates general authorities from me. Also, being nice. But definitely arriving at church on time. Sometimes it has felt like a qualifying task from a wonder tale. Gather these feathers from the wind, carry this mountain of grains in your palm, fashion flower crowns for the Queen and all her bees. Pick up your family and carry them on your head to church and do it in less than no time.
A monstrous task.
When my youngest child was about two or three, this failing in my life loomed like a rockfall across a mountain path. The rockfall seemed too deep, too tall, I could never remove it. For years I had negotiated it, climbed up and around and over it. I could do that, just, but it was wearing, made me dirty and too tired. Worse, the stupid pile seemed to be growing each week, spreading till it felt dangerous lugging my children up and across my enormous rockfall. My spirit wore thin scaling my pile of boulders, fighting on Sunday morning with my children, fighting with the painter, fighting with myself. Fighting with Everyone.
I considered skipping church.
I considered skipping church till my kids were older.
I considered skipping the first part of church (intentionally, I mean).
I considered.
With a heavy heart, I marched myself up to my rockfall and began considering my rocks.


It might seem simple to someone on the outside, someone of, say, an engineering frame of mind. Rocks have to go, can't use the road with rocks all over it, rocks have got to go, get those rocks out of here, what you want to have rocks for here in the first place? It may seem simple from the outside. It was as hard as the hardest thing I have ever done.

Drink the ocean whole, run without stopping till you reach the castle beyond the sea, swim beneath the waves till you find the fish that swallowed the ring.

I pondered my rocks. I forced myself up close to them, close enough to name them by their names. I took a Sunday to observe my failings, free and in the wild. On Monday I began to get ready for Sunday. Rock, rock, rock, rock. It took the whole week.
It's not that rock removal is Herculean. Hercules' tasks were doable, they simply required heavy machinery. My rocks, for me, were both heavy and paradoxical. I had to admit things, confess fault, remove licence, apply discipline. Close your eyes. Now do you see? How'm I s'posed to see with the blast shield down? But I kept my eyes closed and saw a lot of things. I took care of them, grimly, day after day and one day it was Sunday morning and we were going to be on time for church. Damn it.
Spin straw into gold, make bricks without straw, lay down your life to find it.


For want of a nail...

I couldn't find the white tights I had purchased, new, to fit and to be clean so there would be two pair and I could always find them and one wouldn't be in the wash and I had put the tights in the drawer but they weren't there--they weren't!!--they weren't anywhere and the whole thing, the whole week's work, lurched, stumbled, shuddered, stopped, ground down right there and I was stuck, skewered, hanging onto the drawer that was so unbelievably empty and we were going to be. Late. I hung there and felt myself collapsing on the inside into that empty space in the drawer, held on, clenched, the sides of the drawer and really felt every good solid true thing sucking down into the dark place that was never going to be--wait!-no,why-please!--brand new white tights I truly, factually, had put there myself.
It probably sounds silly from the outside, but you have to understand, I had been running to win, running for the crown, I had run till I couldn't run anymore and I didn't have a backup plan. We weren't going to make it, at all.
It probably sounds silly, from the outside.

Take back the ill you have done, fill the time you have wasted, restore the trust you have lost.

I can't. I can't do it. I prayed. Dear God, I tried, I tried so hard but I can't. God, help me, don't let this happen to me and to the children I'm trying to teach. I can't do it. And I know this is my fault, but I don't know how it happened and I don't know what to do now. Help me because I can't fail. I'm afraid. I'm afraid I will never try again.

And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
Luke 22:43

Different people get direction in different ways. I sometimes hear words in my head. These were very clear. Look in the back of her sister's drawer. They aren't the tights you're looking for but there is a pair there that will work. And they did. Clean. And white, a perfect fit. We were not early, but we were on time.
It was as good as the best miracle of my life. It was stunning. And cozy. I had an angel working with me who knew where the tights were.

familiar, a. [ME. famylier; OFr. familier; L. familiaris, of or pertaining to a household, domestic, from familia, household, family.]
Webster

I close my eyes to see impossible things are not accomplished according to any plan of mine. I never found those tights. In Hades there is an imp cavorting about in a small pair of white tights. I shall not dispute them with him; I can't imagine they are, by now, in very good shape. Anyway, we had sufficient. If my familiar angel can restore to me tights I never had, what impossible thing shall be beyond my believing? Feed them all with five barley loaves and two small fishes, bread from the sky and water from the rock, light to those those that walked in darkness. The people on the painter's canvas patiently waiting to undertake their grim work don't yet understand; it's not just the end of the world, it's that the world has ended.


Raise the dead.

How can I keep from singing?


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